I'll finally charm in on this.
Don't also forget that the AMSAT membership hardly pays for its
satellites. The volunteer engineering that goes into each one of them is easily worth millions of dollars at market rates. And it must be understood that there is no such thing as a volunteer willing to work for nothing, even though they don't get paid in money. You have to give them something else, and in the case of engineering an amateur satellite that "something else" is an interesting technical challenge that makes them feel like they've really accomplished something.
Doing the same thing over and over certainly doesn't make me feel like I've accomplished something.
Most of this is true. However, you're looking at a narrow slice of the Fox-1 satellites, that being the operating mode of FM/Analog.
I'm currently building the Fox-1 series satellite Maximum Power Point Tracker. It's a hell of a project. Could AMSAT have bought one off the shelf, yes. However, it's also true that what the majority wants is what the majority gets. In the cubesat world Universities are the majority. They have money, lots of it. Their missions are 6 months to a year. Most commercial cubesat MPPTs are not designed for much longer of missions.
In contrast AMSAT is gaining a huge amount of Intellectual property by designing an analog MPPT where the algorithm is completely stateless and part selection is aimed at helping guarantee that a 5+ year mission is possible. Most of the market doesn't care about this, it's hard to do and using a microcontroller is ridiculously more straightforward. Just do a Google search for MPPT, nearly everything you find will be using perturb and observe with a microcontroller or super pricey/almost non-existant analog multipliers or the maximum current method (which relies on the battery being present). The Fox-1 MPPT is specifically designed to not need a battery at all for nominal operation.
Cubesats are standardizing AMSATs satellites and there's much much more to the satellite than simply the amateur radio mode used to communicate. If I do my job right, and others working on their Fox-1 subsystems do their jobs right too, you will never know it... it will be invisible to the average user.
Once AMSAT can rapidly and reliable get basic cubesats into orbit, then it can start going wild on experimental modes and such.
For the record, I'm all for digital satellites. I also understand how too much complexity too quickly isn't a good thing either.
Bryce KB1LQC
On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 8:00 PM, Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net wrote:
On 07/20/2014 06:10 AM, Thomas Doyle wrote:
- What the majority wants is more important than any individual want.
How do you determine what the majority wants.
- Voting
The results of an election are strongly determined by who gets to vote.
If you poll the tiny fraction of the amateur community currently active on satellites, you'll get one answer.
If you poll the much larger pool of people (including people who aren't even hams yet) who might be interested in something else, you may well get another answer.
But not right away; it's been shown time and again that people often don't know they want something until you show it to them, and then they simply have to have it. Think mobile phones and Internet, the two things I spent my career on. It wasn't long ago that people (including most hams) rolled their eyes whenever I talked up the idea of global computer networking and mobile personal communications. Who couldn't wait until they got home to make a phone call? Who needed to send a letter instantly when they had the phone or the US mail? Who cared about talking to other countries unless they had relatives there?
Don't also forget that the AMSAT membership hardly pays for its satellites. The volunteer engineering that goes into each one of them is easily worth millions of dollars at market rates. And it must be understood that there is no such thing as a volunteer willing to work for nothing, even though they don't get paid in money. You have to give them something else, and in the case of engineering an amateur satellite that "something else" is an interesting technical challenge that makes them feel like they've really accomplished something.
Doing the same thing over and over certainly doesn't make me feel like I've accomplished something.
--Phil _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb